


The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

by Vanr



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drabble Collection, Existentialism, Fluff, M/M, Non-Chronological, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-22 15:58:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8291704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanr/pseuds/Vanr
Summary: Working in Starfleet, Leonard McCoy has experienced some pretty damn obscure sorrows. Hell, even outside of Starfleet, his life's been no picnic. But looking back, looking back at the peculiar feelings he's had and the life he's lived, he can't really say he's regretted any of it.Or, snapshots of one Leonard McCoy, as described by the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.





	1. 1. Sonder

**Author's Note:**

> Sonder- noun. The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own

When Leonard McCoy realized that the blue eyed, blond haired boy he'd met on the shuttle was Jim Kirk, _the_ Jim Kirk, he was faintly surprised. It had never occurred to him that that man, infamous son of George Kirk, would follow in his father’s footsteps. Not that he couldn’t see it happening, he'd just hadn't expected it. But it was clear that whatever his previous life had been like, Kirk belonged here. One look at the man, at his determined scowl and bright eyes, was all Leonard needed to see. It was profound, undeniable proof that Jim Kirk belonged here, belonged in the black. He belonged in Starfleet.

He was the son of a hero, after all. It seemed only natural that he would want to follow the path laid before him by his father, and to a lesser extent, his mother as well.

But as Leonard thought about it, sitting by himself in his newly furnished dorm room, he realized that Kirk's situation was far more complicated than just following in his parents' footsteps. He looked at Kirk and saw a person, a flawed person, but a good man nevertheless.

Kirk was a book, a story with as many (if not more) chapters, as many little side details, as many pages as there were in Leonard's own life. He was living his life, just as Leonard lived his. And in Kirk’s story, who was he? A random bystander, the grumpy southern doctor seated next to him on the shuttle. Someone present once, present to share alcohol, and then gone. A side character, included once for no particular reason, and then cast aside as he was no longer needed.

He was in one scene, one page. One inconsequential moment of Kirk’s life. And as Leonard was thinking about Jim Kirk, he realized with a start that he knew very little about him. Kirk was a legend, but all Leonard knew about him was the circumstances of his birth. He undoubtedly had more than that going on in his life, was clearly a person who existed independently from the legacy of George Kirk. But, thinking about, Leonard couldn't really bring to mind what Kirk was like outside of that legacy. Kirk undoubtedly had lived a complex life. He had goals, ambitions. He had dreams. Leonard just... didn't know a thing about them.

One look into Kirk’s bright blue eyes was all Leonard needed to understand that he lived forcefully, freely and lived in vivid color, ignoring what others had to say about him. Jim Kirk was a story, a story that would go on chapters and chapters after this, after meeting Leonard for that fleeting moment on the shuttle to San Francisco. A story Leonard was pretty sure he would never step into again.


	2. 2. Opia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Opia- noun. The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable

Looking at Jim Kirk was like looking at the sky. One could not simply look at the sky and unequivocally call it blue, and on the same vein, one could not look at Jim's eyes and say they were simply 'blue' without leaving out crucial details. Or at least, that's how Leonard McCoy felt about it.

They were blue, yes, but many shades. They were bright near the middle, flecks of silver and navy scattered throughout to paint a vivid picture. When Jim laughed, the brightness near his irises grew, engulfed the whole sky in bright rays of sunshine. When he frowned, when he was unhappy, the flecks of the navy blue grew and swallowed the sun up into darkness.

Jim Kirk was expressive and not shy about his emotions. Leonard, on the other hand, was a different story. 

He hid his emotions. Not well, mind you, but he hid them. He wore a scowl or a frown to hide who he really was, to shutter himself behind potent curtains and carry on living underneath a mask. He had successfully fooled nearly everyone in his life.

But he never could seem to fool Jim Kirk.

Whenever he made eye contact with Jim, he felt like a slide underneath the lens of a microscope. He felt like Jim was seeing deeper into Leonard’s mind than he’d allowed for, was seeing more of Leonard than even Leonard himself saw. He felt like he was a goddamn book, and Jim could just open up the cover and read the pages to his heart’s content. He was exposed, laid bare before a guy he  _barely even knew_ , but somehow seemed to understand him in a way that few people ever had before.

It was something Leonard didn’t want to think about particularly hard, however, and so he rarely did. He accepted it and he tried to make amends with that feeling, that nagging, persistent feeling that he got whenever he decided to make eye contact with his only friend at Starfleet so far.

Whenever he looked into the skies of Jim Kirk’s eyes, he always felt this way. And try as he might to shake that cutting feeling of vulnerability, he never could seem to make himself do it.


	3. 3. Monachopsis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monachopsis- noun. The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place

Physically, he stood out of the class like a sore thumb. He stuck out for many reasons, chief among them being that he was far older than nearly every one else. He knew that he was a good ten years older than the majority of the kids here, sitting in this damned lecture hall.

That's what they are, he thought gruffly. Kids. The hall was filled with them. They may have been at Starfleet Academy, but they were still college freshmen, 18 years old, nervous, and so painfully young. They looked at each other with bright eyes, terrified but excited to venture into the unknown that would be their future. They knew nothing of the storm coming for them, a storm Leonard himself had weathered through many years ago. The students were all still so foolishly optimistic about their future, both academic and personal. Their eyes were bright with promise, and they think like Leonard himself used to think, when he was young and didn't know the shit lying before him in his miserable future.

Leonard scowled bitterly, aware that all 28 of his own years showed in the lines on his face, the tanned edges of his skin. His hair was graying near the temples; prematurely maybe, but graying nevertheless. Some of these kids, on the other hand, look as though they haven’t even started shaving.

He was out of place here, among the children. He had two doctorates and a PhD already, and most of these kids had only just finished high school. He’d been divorced, had a child, lived a life and decided that it wasn't worth living. These kids had barely even started the life they had already, hadn't lived long enough to carry the deep regrets that he'd already been forced to carry. He wasn't really _old_ , by any means of the word, but he felt positively ancient in the lecture hall filled with children. Children who sat and stared at Leonard as he huffed and took a seat in a row of chairs empty but for him. Children who watched and hopefully realized that in ten years, give or take, they will be like this too.

When someone came and sat in the seat next to him, Leonard almost snapped them away before he realized who it was. And when he did, he couldn't say that he was particularly surprised.

Jim Kirk. Jim, who sat like he owned the place and started to chat immediately, not noticing or perhaps just not caring that Leonard isn’t listening or responding. It was clear what he was trying to do. He was trying to help Leonard assimilate, to accept his new situation. To live with the choices he had made.

Leonard forced himself to relax at that, more calmed by the idea that anyone gave a shit than the words actually being spoken. And it did help. He felt less prickly, less on edge, less likely to burst at the seams. But he still couldn't shake that persistent, nagging feeling that no matter what he did, he simply didn't belong here.


	4. 4. Vellichor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vellichor- noun. The strange wistfulness of used bookstore, which is somehow infused with the passage of time
> 
> This chapter breaks the timeline set up by the previous chapters. There is a reason why it is tagged 'non-chronological', although it is really only *mostly* out of order. But I digress.

Leonard McCoy held his mother’s hand as they walked down a sidewalk, empty of pedestrians but for them. It was a cool and pleasant day, the sun shone and the sky was peppered with only a few white clouds. On a day like this, Leo would ordinarily have found himself outside climbing trees and playing with the horses in the field with his cousins. Instead, he walked along a disused, poorly maintained sidewalk, shoes catching every so often on deep cracks in the concrete. He was still only a young boy, legs too long and face too long, but unaware of this and cheerful despite it. 

His new shoes were scuffed and muddied already, as was the case with many small children. His spindly knees and elbows were scraped and raw from various misadventures and explorations in the dense Georgian undergrowth behind his grandmother's house. At nine years old, he still looked at the world with hopeful, optimistic eyes. Eyes, to be fair, mostly covered by a mop of unruly and slightly curly brown hair that was in sore need of a cut. He looked around with wonder, mostly because this was still new to him. At nine, he was beginning to understand the world and his place in it, although not really the place he would come to fill. 

That didn't matter to him now. At this moment, Leo held his mother's hand and followed the two older women as they walked down the street. The whole street was set up to be a nod to the past, to a world where people did shopping in real life and not by using the 'net. The stores sold clothes and toys and things that weren't necessarily valuable on the market, but held value of a more sentimental kind.

The stores were relics of a time long since passed. 

Wooden doors stand guard over the last building on the block, wooden doors that block out the outside world but at the same time, invite it. They were easy to open, grand and intriguing, beckoning visitors young and old. Leo opened the door and ran inside, eyes wide and taking in everything. The first thing that struck him was the smell, and then the feeling he got just by entering the room.

He was witnessing something unique, and knew it. He didn't have the words to describe it, but he felt it anyway. Somehow, in nothing but paper and ink, the books themselves contained all of humanity's past. Not just the actual information, but the feelings, the very spark of human ingenuity and determination that went along with them. 

The smell of old books, the bright and inviting colors, the rectangles of different sizes on their shelf-like thrones all contributed together to create that feeling one got when suspended in a pool. 

The books were all handed down through the generations, passed from parents to offspring for hundreds of years and remaining unchanged, untouched. Unaffected, even as humanity evolved and became something new. They were outside of time, outside of the realm where age could touch them.

Leo stood, admiring them all, soaking in the tangy-sweet nostalgia he could not fully comprehend. He stood in a room filled with humanity's hopes, their dreams, and he dreamed right along with them. He stood in shoes too big and clothes too small, and with dreams that crossed the universe.


	5. 5. Rubatosis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rubatosis- noun. The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat

He was a fucking doctor, for crying out loud, and a Starfleet officer besides. He shouldn't have been so damn nervous, especially since he was just beaming down on an away mission. It was nothing he hadn't done before, after all. But he of all people knew that constant exposure didn't necessarily mean that one got over their fears.

He may had (mostly) taken care of his aviophobia, but that didn't mean he was ultimately okay with the transporter beam. 

It spooked him, that was all. Scattering the atoms of someone's body and rearranging them made him nervous, sue him. It wasn't a baseless fear. One didn't have to be a doctor to understand that taking someone apart and rebuilding them was dangerous. It was risky. One small error and the person could die, or be forced to live with a horrifying injury. It was just... unnatural.

The Starfleet officer in him scolded the rest of him. Things rarely went wrong with teleport beams in recent years. The sciences that they were based on had been greatly perfected. 

The doctor in him was still freaked out, to be sure, but was still finding something to scold the rest of Leonard about. After all, the sound of his own heartbeat shouldn't have been freaking him out so damn much. It meant that he was  _alive_ , that he still had the energy to keep fighting. It, literally, was a symbol of hope. 

But hearing it, hearing his heart thudding and pressing down on his eardrums still freaked him out. He tried to think about it rationally, just to take his mind off of the terror and instead analyse the root of the fear. Ever the doctor, he was.

Ordinarily, it just wasn't something he normally focused on. But now, when it became harder to put the fear out of his mind, he tended jumped to worst-case scenarios, and become hyper-focused on the small details. One such detail being his own heartbeat. Because he rarely ever listened tohis heartbeat, the sound of it now unsettled him. That was all it was.

It made sense, sure, but that wasn't going to help much. Maybe that would have been enough for Spock, but it sure as hell wasn't enough for Leonard.

He took a deep breath, cursing that hitch in his throat that caused his breathing to sound jumpy, to make his fright obvious to anyone paying any sort of attention. Someone like Jim Kirk, who stood nearby and watched with eyes bright with concern.

He noticed that, undoubtedly. Jim noticed everything. "You ready, Bones?" he asked, voice intended to soothe him. It didn't work, but he appreciated the effort anyway.

_Thump, thump._

"Hell no," Leonard grumbled. "Go on and beam me outta here before I throw up on something." He meant it as a joke, of course.

The fact that he was also completely, one hundred percent serious meant  _nothing_.

"That's the spirit," said Jim, and Leonard's world disappeared in a cloud of white and gold.

 

 


	6. 6. Kenopsia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kenopsia- noun. The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet

He knew, in his mind, that their lives at Starfleet were going to be different when they got back. How could it not have been? Eight of Starfleet's best ships had been sent out, manned with nearly the entirety of his graduating class, and only one ship had returned. Returned with a scant 400 or so aboard, leaving Leonard's graduating class of 1600 decimated to a mere 800 or so. The survivors were the people left behind and the people on-board the  _Enterprise._  They alone remained.

When they got back, Leonard threw himself back into his work. He'd have plenty of time for grieving later. The only thing that really mattered to him was helping, healing, fixing. Easing people's burdens in the best way he knew how. 

He tried his best to put it from his mind, the loss, but he never could. When he woke up the first morning after _that_ , he found himself alone, which wasn't unusual. He walked to the clinic in darkness, surrounded by San Francisco fog and the guilty weight of having been spared from tragedy. He walked quickly, self-conscious, but as he did he realized the effort was fruitless. The campus was a ghost-town, abandoned and empty. Had this been another day, a day before Nero had reared his ugly head once more, there would have been cadets everywhere. Young people, laughing, and perhaps not thriving in such early hours of the day, but going forth and living on regardless of those early hours.

In their absence, there remained nothing but the fog and the chilly, empty air.

It was hard to deal with this sudden emptiness.

The feeling of _loss_  wasn't really something that hit you all at once, Leonard decided. It was slowly realized, slowly registered, because one forgot about it and then it slowly crept up on them. It would whisper treacherously in the silences of the mind; quiet, yes, but unrelenting. One forgot, and it was a punch in the heart and the soul when they realized they had forgotten, that they had taken what had been lost for granted.

Leonard knew this from bitter experience, and was accustomed to dealing with suffering. Accustomed, but certainly not unaffected, at any rate.

After all, he had lost people too. His neighbor, a soft-spoken, gentle young man with a PhD in neurology and another in chemistry, had been assigned to the  _Intrepid_ , a smaller and older ship than the  _Enterprise_. He had seen the man once on that day, changing into his medical blues, and then never again.

The woman he ate lunch with on the days Jim wasn't there to keep him company, she had been assigned to the  _Farragut._

Lieutenant Singer, another young man, an anaesthesiologist and fellow surgeon who had worked with Leonard on a good two-thirds of all his surgeries.

All three of them, and then even more, dead and gone without a trace. 

It was surreal to walk through his life and notice only now the people whom he valued, whom he counted as friends. Particularly troublesome patients (aside from Jim, of course), nurses he'd worked shifts with, doctors he'd performed surgeries with, students he'd taken classes with; the knowledge of all these he people would never see again weighed down heavily upon his shoulders. 

The hallways of Starfleet Medical were hollow and blank, almost aggressively empty. It reminded Leonard of a graveyard, in a way. Here lay the best and the brightest of Starfleet, the next generation of doctors and soldiers and peacekeepers and diplomats and scientists. Dead and gone. 

It didn't help that most of their bodies hadn't been recovered, that they likely still drifted in space. Leonard had never really believed in ghosts, or anything of that nature, but he couldn't help but wonder if there might have been some merit to the idea after all. He felt the weight of all those lost souls sinking in, settling. He felt something when he thought of all the people who had died out there in the black. All those people who had died in space, in artificial gravity and so far away from home. Who had died without the ground under their feet, without sun on their face or real air in their lungs.

Starfleet Medical sat still, now, after the dust had settled and those who had been injured had been taken care of. Now, offices that had previously belonged to people had been darkened, shut off and locked away. Personal effects still littered the desks, desks that would have to be cleaned out. After that, they would be left barren, lifeless. They would be cast away.

They would be forgotten.


End file.
